Urban Archaeology

...define, record, remove...

Welcome to the Urban Archaeology weblog, where you can read about some of my work as a freelance archaeologist, and see examples of my archaeological illustration work. Clicking on most images will open enlarged versions.Urban Archaeology provides a wide range of on- and off-site services to the archaeological profession, including running and working on excavations, post-excavation services, training and development work, and illustration work.This weblog will carry news of upcoming projects as and when they happen as well as wider thoughts on archaeological issues, especially recording, stratigraphy and training.

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Just got the basic framework together for the Gloucestershire cross-slab survey blog: http://gloscross-slabs.blogspot.co.uk/ It will fill out a bit more over the next few months as time allows.Active fieldwork is on hold at present whilst we get the 100 Minories site finished, but once that is done we hope to get out and about systematically recording cross-slabs across the county and building up a gazetteer and database of the surviving cross-slabs. There is also a lot of work to be done transcribing antiquarian notes on cross-slabs, and building a database and GIS for the project. Eventually we hope to cover the whole county, from the Cotswolds to the Forest of Dean, and publish a fully illustrated corpus of the surviving medieval cross-slabs in Gloucestershire as well as any records of slabs which have been destroyed.We'll be posting photos, images and updates on the Cross-slabs blog, and on Facebook as the project runs.

Please get in touch if you have any information on cross-slabs in the county, or are interested in helping with the project.

'But now of later time
the same ditch is inclosed, and the banks thereof let out for garden-plots,
carpenter's yards, bowling alleys, and divers houses thereon built, whereby the
city wall is hidden, the ditch filled up, a small channel left, and that very
shallow.'

At 100 Minories we will be excavating the City ditch which
surrounded the City of London. A wall and ditch was built around the landward
sides of the Roman settlement of Londinium around 200 AD, and along the Thames from
c 280 AD. Following the re-occupation
of London by King Alfred in 886 AD the walls and ditch resumed their defensive
function and there is evidence for the continued repair, rebuilding and
strengthening of the City wall and bastions throughout the medieval period. In
addition archaeological excavations have shown that the City ditch was repeatedly cleaned
out and recut.

Although we finished digging in December 2013 work is far
from finished on our project at Horse and Groom Inn in the Cotswolds. Over the
past few months a team of specialists have been looking in detail at all the
artefacts, animal and human bone and environmental samples from the site, and
writing detailed assessment reports on them. Over at Urban Archaeology we have
also been busy checking and collating records, digitising site plans, briefing
the specialists and creating a database and GIS of all the site data. We have
also been writing a detailed account of what we found at the site, a framework
into which the specialist data will be slotted later. This document, known as a
post-excavation assessment (PXA) is an important milestone in the site's
progress, a point where we stop and assess what we found on site, look at its
potential and its significance, and decide what further work is required to
analyse and publish the site findings.

The PXA is not a complete and final report: once it is
approved by the local planning archaeologist work will start on the analysis
phase and the preparation of the final publication text, which will be
published in an academic journal. Meantime we have now received all the
specialist reports and we thought we would give an update on some of our
findings.

One of the finds on site that captured the most attention
was the discovery of an adult human skeleton that probably dates from the
Middle Iron Age. What we didn't say at the time was that there was a further
burial alongside the adult skeleton, and that we had recovered other probable human
remains from the site.

We have now received the detailed osteological report on the
human remains, and it turns out that there were the remains of five individuals
buried on the site: the adult crouched burial, a baby buried within the
backfill of his burial, and three other fragmentary baby skeletons or parts of
skeletons.

We identified the crouched burial as probably dating from
the Middle Iron Age as the grave backfill contained large, conjoining, sherds
of a Middle Iron Age jar that may have been deliberately thrown into the grave.
It is possible that this pottery is residual and the burial is later than the
Middle Iron Age -there are instances of similar Roman crouched burials from the
area- however there was no Roman pottery
in the grave and no other Middle Iron Age features nearby that could have provided
such large pieces of Middle Iron Age pottery. We will be using Carbon Dating to
establish the date of the burial.

The first skeleton is also the most complete as he had been
buried in a crouched position within a small pit cut down into the natural
limestone bedrock. On site we identified the skeleton as being of an adult male
(and luckily osteologist Gaynor Western agrees!) The skeleton is a of a male who
probably died aged between 25 and 40 and who stood 1.76m tall (5 foot 9) (slightly
taller than the known average for Iron Age males). Detailed inspection of the
skeleton showed that he had slight congenital or developmental abnormalities on
his spine and ribs, but nothing that would have affected him adversely during
his life. There were no signs of any diseases, injuries or other trauma on his bones,
and his teeth were in good condition.

The other skeletons were all fragmentary, and all were from
new born or very young babies. Their bones were very fragile and we can tell
less about these individuals. The dating of the other three babies is
uncertain, they were all recovered from contexts dated to the medieval period,
but all may be significantly older. It is not inconceivable that the burials
may date from the Iron Age or Roman period given their proximity to the
concentration of Iron Age and Roman activity on the site.

Back in 2012 Urban Archaeology worked on an evaluation for
LP Archaeology at 100 Minories in the City of London. The site was immediately
outside the Roman and medieval city wall, just north of the Tower of London and
during the evaluation we found evidence for 17th century brick buildings,
gardens and yards, and a very deep
ditch: the 'City Ditch', which was first dug in the Roman period and ran around
the City wall. You can read more about the evaluation here, here, here and here.

After a brief lull the archaeological project has restarted
and we are gearing up for a major excavation later in the year. So far the existing
building has been demolished and we have monitored geotechnical works to find
out exactly where the District Line tunnel runs -it crosses the northern corner
of our site. Now we are starting to go below slab level and get the site ready
for the dig.

We know that on our site the Roman City Ditch has probably
been truncated by subsequent medieval and post-medieval ditches, and the site
may lie outside of the Roman East London Cemetery, Roman remains may therefore be
limited to gravel quarries and agricultural features. By the 1580s mapping
evidence shows the area around the site as small, enclosed fields east of the City
Ditch, but by 1676 the area between the City Wall and Minories had been built
up, with rows of houses and courtyards to the west of the Minories street
frontage, and the ditch appears to have been largely infilled.

There was a major redevelopment of the site in the 1760s and
a major Georgian development was built -The Circus, The Crescent, and America
Square, all linked by Vine Street. Instead of digging deep cellars or basements
the developers demolished the existing buildings and built on top of that level
-then raising the road and back yard areas by up to 3m and effectively
protecting the underlying archaeological remains under the new basements. Much
of the Georgian development was destroyed by bombing in WW2, and our site was
redeveloped in the 1960s by the Guildhall Polytechnic as a school of
navigation.

When the 1960s buildings were constructed they filled some
of the oldGeorgian basements with mass
fill concrete -up to 3.5m thick! We are now slowly breaking out that concrete so
that we can expose the top of the archaeological deposits underneath. These deposits
will be mapped and protected with geotextile and a layer of clean sand before
the area is covered by a thick piling mat and the piling rig arrives. Once the
pilers have built a pile wall around the excavation we will remove the mat and protection
and have a proper excavation of the site -secure within our pile wall.

The site will be excavated in three areas, starting with the
northern Area A. We dug one test pit here in 2012 and found evidence for probable
gravel quarrying, and medieval or post-medieval yard surfaces -fitting nicely
with the 1676 Ogilby and Morgan map which shows the test pit location within a
yard. To the east and south of the testpit the map also shows a series of
buildings around an alley and courtyard, and we are hoping that these may have
survived the Georgian demolition. At the west of Area A we are expecting the
ground to start sloping down to the City Ditch.

The University of Leicester has produced an online learning course
on ' England
in the time of Richard III'; the course is free and available on FutureLearn, an online learning
portal. The course uses a variety of accessible articles, audio files,
animations and videos to take you through the political, economic and social
background to the late 15th century and the discovery of Richard III's body in
a series of short modules. The course is suitable for anyone interested in later
medieval England and assumes no previous knowledge of the subject. It's a great way of learning about a pivotal time in the evolution and history of England, and the modular structure means you can take it at your own speed as and when you want.

The course started a couple of weeks ago, but you can join
in at any time and catch up, it takes about three hours a week over six weeks, although if you
follow all the links and reading it could take far more! Professor Christopher
Dyer, who has helped us with documentary records on our Horse
and Groom medieval farm site, is one of the academics who has contributed
to the course.

It was The Day of Archaeology yesterday, a day when archaeologists are encouraged to blog about what they are doing on the day. It is a fantastic project that gives a real insight into
the huge variety of archaeological work going on around the world, and
the huge variety of people doing that work, so please go and have a look
at what archaeologists have been getting up to.

Hopefully the blog will explain some possible reasons why it has been a bit quiet on here recently, but the good news is that the next project will involve a lot of public
information -we are planning a project website and regular updates on
what we are digging and finding out about the site. Can't wait!

Recent work has included a research project recording
medieval cross-slabs in local Gloucestershire churches. Cross-slabs are a
relatively overlooked class of medieval funerary monument compared to the better
known and often more magnificent effigy slabs and tombs. Cross-slabs are essentially
characterised by a central cross motif, although there is considerable variety
in their style and decoration, and there is overlap with other types of
monument.

I’m
swapping medieval settlements for something a bit more exotic for the next few
weeks, I’m off to North Sudan to work on the Nubian royal cemetery site of El
Kurru. The site is on the banks of the Nile below the 4th cataract and is near
to Karima. It contains several eroded pyramids which date from the 8th to the
4th century BCE during the early Kushite period, there are also four rows of
horse burials and rock-cut tombs with wall paintings. The known monuments were
excavated by Reisner in 1918/9 –all but one pyramid chamber which was deemed
too unsafe to enter.

Abbas
Sidahmed, a Sudanese prehistorian who grew up in El Kurru village is in charge
of a project to prepare and present the site for visitors, screening and
removing Reisner’s spoil heaps. Geoff Emberling will be continuing the
excavation of a mortuary temple and an area of “town wall” that Reisner
uncovered and which was relocated last year. Finally his team will be investigating
the burial chamber of the one pyramid which Reisner did not excavate.

I will be working for Rachael Dann, and we will be investigating the outlying royal cemetery –following
up on magnetometry survey which revealed some interesting anomalies that may be
tombs that were not found by Reisner. They will almost certainly have been robbed in the past, but may still contain wall paintings and fragmentary evidence of the original contents.

Burial Chamber of the tomb of Tanutamani (Creative Commons,
TrackHD)

I’m not sure how good the internet will be out there, so its
unlikely that I’ll be posting any progress reports and pictures before I get back
to civilisation in Khartoum, but who knows!

Over the next few months Chiz Harward will be giving a series of evening lectures on the results of the excavations at Horse and Groom Inn, Bourton-on-the-Hill. The talks will cover the background to the site, the excavation, and the initial findings and thoughts on the site and its importance in understanding the medieval landscape of the north Cotswlds. There will be time for questions and discussion after each talk.

For a few years Urban Archaeology has been producing factsheets on various subjects from artefacts to excavation techniques. These are now being updated and expanded and over the next few months we will be making the new sheets available online for free dowload.

Our site at Horse and Groom is now over, but we still have
plenty of work to do. One job is to create elevations of all the walls of the
medieval buildings. These will be used to illustrate the final report, but most
importantly they form a key part of our record of the site. We are using a
technique called photo-rectification as it is a quick and effective method that
takes less time on site, but still allows for accurate results.

So far the winter here in Gloucestershire has been mostly mild and wet and very windy rather than cold and snowy, but I thought it worthwhile to repost this piece I wrote for the Diggers' Forum a few years ago. Winter is always a challenging time for those working on site, and with the current gales and wet weather this year is no different and its not likely to get a lot better for a fair while yet. We've put together a few tips for both diggers and supervisors to help you survive the winter –after all, it may keep coming til April!

Cold weather working: a survival guide

The excavations at Horse and Groom Inn have been in the news recently -we were featured in The Sun as well as in local papers and news websites. There'll also be a longer piece on the site in the next issue of Current Archaeology -out on 2nd January.

One of Urban Archaeology’s wider aims is to develop
training materials for use on archaeological sites. For several years we
produced an occasional and ad hoc series of hand-outs and reference sheets for use in identifying finds and aiding in the
recording and interpretation of archaeological features and site formation processes.

A couple of years ago Urban Archaeology applied for grant
funding to develop a series of factsheets based on common classes of artefacts;
unfortunately we weren’t successful however we did prepare a pilot version of a
Roman Ceramic Building Material (CBM) Factsheet containing information on types
of CBM found in London. The concept was for a free downloadable A2 poster that could
be displayed in site huts and tea rooms, with smaller A4 versions available as handouts,
or potentially viewed on smart-phones. There's a downloadable version of the pilot factsheet below -the fonts don't view very well on the Scribd website, so its best to download it and it will open as a pdf.

We’d be very interested in any feedback on the format and the
level of content, especially if anyone is interested in sponsoring or helping
develop what we feel would be a great resource for archaeologists!

Gloucestershire Cross-slabs Survey

About Urban Archaeology: Chiz Harward

Chiz has worked within the archaeological industry for over twenty years across the UK, and within the historic core of London for over ten years. Chiz was a Senior Archaeologist and Project Officer at the Museum of London Archaeology Service from 1998-2008, where he supervised, assessed and analysed some of London's largest and most complex excavations, as well as numerous smaller sites and projects.

Chiz specialises in the excavation and analysis of deeply stratified urban sequences commonly found in Roman and medieval London and other historic towns. Chiz is also an experienced archaeological illustrator and has been developing training materials for several years.

Between 2008 and 2010 Chiz worked as a freelance archaeologist trading as Urban Archaeology. This is the Urban Archaeology blog. After a two year stint as a Senior Project Officer at Cotswold Archaeology, Chiz is back working as a freelance archaeologist.

Contact:

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Chartered Institute for Archaeologists

Chiz Harward is a Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (MCIfA), the highest level of individual accreditation, and sits on the CIfA Registration Committee (Organisations). Chiz served for 4 years on the IfA Council, and was previously a member of the Professional Development and Practice Committee, the IfA Working Party on Self-employment, and the IfA Remuneration Working Party. Chiz is on the Diggers' Forum committee and edits their newsletter: the Forum Dispatch.

Chiz strongly believes in producing work of the highest professional and ethical standards, complying with the professional standards and Code of Conduct of the professional body for archaeologists: The Chartered Institute for Archaeologists.